


Sedated

by osunism



Series: Ice Shielded By Flame [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Light BDSM, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-19
Updated: 2016-10-19
Packaged: 2018-08-23 11:30:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8326159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/osunism/pseuds/osunism
Summary: Grief sedated by orgasm; orgasm heightened by grief. --Warsan Shire





	

She dreams of him sometimes. Often. Too much. Not enough.

It makes her irritable by day, restless by night. Sex, as intimate as it should be, leaves her feeling far more empty than before. She lets Calpernia hurt her, command her, move her in ways as violent and consuming as the magic they bring to the bedchamber. Yet it is not enough to outpace the ghost Hadiza carries with her.

Calpernia is sick of it. No one ever told her loving a woman in mourning would be so insufferable.

One night, she pushes Hadiza too far, too hard, too fast.

“ _Duniya_!” Hadiza gasps out, spitting out her gag, teeth bared in a snarl. “What in Andraste’s tears did you do that for?!”

Calpernia is still inside of her, and slides out quickly, just as irritable.

“Are you fucking me or him, Inquisitor?” She demands, going for the buckles  of her harness. “Because I am beginning to feel as if I am merely a catalyst for you to commune with your dead husband.”

Hadiza, still bound, struggles to look dignified in her anger.

“What is that supposed to mean?” She asks dangerously. Calpernia drops the harness, slips into her nightgown, and begins plucking at the intricate knots that bind her lover. Hadiza does not look at her, but her silver eyes smolder like a pair of stars in her dark face. When she is unbound she stretches and tests her limbs for motion. Calpernia, not one to abandon her even now, helps her settle.

“When you came to me a year ago,” she says, reaching for a sponge to clean one of welts on Hadiza’s skin, “your tears had scarce dried on your cheeks before you expressed interest in warming my bed.”

Hadiza flinches, guilt worming its way up to douse the angry fire in her eyes. Calpernia frowns.

“I will not be the balm to your broken heart,” she says firmly, “not like this. I will not ask you to give him up, Maker knows that is an impossible task, but you need to let him go. This?” She gestures at the harness, the rope that lays harmlessly on the floor in delicate coils, “This won’t work between us if I can’t trust you’re here with me. Here.” She taps Hadiza’s forehead. “And here.” Her heart, the place where the ghost dwells.

Hadiza feels something in her break. Calpernia will never ask her to give him up in her heart, but Maker what else was there to do?

“I can’t.” She says, her voice thick with grief. “It’s too soon. I don’t want him to go…”

“But he’s gone already.” Calpernia says, softening the blow. She doesn’t want to admit, but Hadiza in grief is not nearly as beautiful as seeing her tears during their loveplay. It _hurts_  in a way Calpernia herself does not understand.

“I couldn’t save him.” Hadiza whispers, “And I’m so sorry. It was never my intention to…use you as balm. I just…”

“…didn’t want to be alone.” Calpernia finishes. She understands it, now, the source of her own hurt. She cups Hadiza’s cheek with one hand.

“You’re the Inquisitor,” Calpernia tells her, “whether there’s an Inquisition or no. You’re not alone. And…and if my aid to you comes in this way, more’s the better. But his ghost must rest. It’s only right.”

She puts an arm around Hadiza, pulls her close, skin to skin, a warmth that for once does not feel stolen or alien. Hadiza weeps quietly, mourns the ghost as she throws open her heart and lets it go. Calpernia can feel her growing lighter as the burden of mourning is lifted enough. She turns her head, kisses Hadiza’s tears, tastes the salt of her grief, samples it. It is no small wonder, a love like that could only be followed by a grief too profound for words. Hadiza kisses her gently, lets the narcotic of lust and a love split in two balm the grievous wounds on her soul. Calpernia does not mind, and when they make love, there are no ropes or harnesses between them, only the quiet intensity Calpernia did not know she craved, the intimacy of having Hadiza’s arms and legs wrapped around her, loose-limbed and languorous.

And Calpernia lets Hadiza take, revels in the ripple of her climax, the spill of her in her mouth, and the calm that follows. Hadiza is asleep in moments, exhausted by grief, wrung limp with orgasm, and Calpernia strokes her hair, thinking on her words as she surprises even herself with an unexpected twinge of sadness.

There’s a ghost in her heart too.


End file.
